


Semper Eadem

by captainodonewithyou



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Bodyguard, F/M, Modern Royalty, Royalty AU, static quake - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-23
Updated: 2016-07-19
Packaged: 2018-05-02 23:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5267882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainodonewithyou/pseuds/captainodonewithyou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Daisy is the crown princess to the Afterlife where her mother is currently leading a tumultuous rule--and just trying to graduate college whilst maintaining some illusion of normality; Lincoln has been reassigned from his Special Forces job to her bodyguard and neither of them are happy about the conditions.  She doesn't like the idea of being protected and he misses his old job--and they mostly take out their frustration on each other.  However, they become reluctant friends--and, when the crown is threatened, they are sent on an adventure upon which they find that the only one they can really trust is the other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Heart of a Lion

She doesn’t hide the fact that she resents him, or the implication that she needs him, or probably all of the above.  It has always been an icy give-and-take exchange between the two of them, since his discharge and reassignment—which, if he is being entirely fair, he was never exactly jumping in joy about, either.

 

(“Wait, you’re taking me off Special Forces and reassigning me as a _babysitter_?”

 

“Babysitter and body guard are two very different things.”

 

“You are assigning me to a 19 year old girl’s protective service, 24/7. That is _babysitting_.”

 

“You’ve been through a lot, Campbell.  Just take the downtime, yeah?  We’ll consider reassignment again after you’ve had some time to cool off.”)

 

Some time, so far, has proven to be _three_ _years_.  He thinks it is goddamn hard to _cool off_ when his job is trailing a moody as hell princess who mainly spends her time trying to shake him (and is damn good at it, too.)

 

So day in, day out, the game goes something like this; he switches with the night-guard, who without fail breathes heavily his or her relief that if the princess’s royal pain of an ass isn’t actually in her apartment, it is officially on him (Frequently. It happens _frequently_ , and she makes sure she is always found out on his goddamn watch.)

 

He leans against the wall between their rooms, crosses his arms, and scowls at the sickly-sweet flowered wallpaper across the hall.  There are 121 daisies, 97 roses, 70 tulips and 53 weird hybrid things he is pretty sure whoever created the wallpaper completely made up.  He has counted no less than 900 times.

 

After an exaggerated 35 minutes or longer, the princess emerges from her apartment.  Her dark eyes scan him and she crosses her arms, expression sinking into a flawless glower of disappointment.

 

(He swears she looks hopeful every damn morning that he won’t be there, until he is, and he is also almost certain it is entirely an act so that she can fully demonstrate how much she resents him, to consistently make his job shitty.)

 

“You’re still here.”

 

“Every day.”

 

He smiles sarcastically, like he is happy to be there, because it is his only defense to her favorite line and because it annoys her more than her feigned disappointment annoys him.  She rolls her eyes and scoffs and turns to take off down the hallway without another word to him.  He lets the smile return to a scowl and follows begrudgingly behind her, taking the quiet moment to daydream about reconnaissance and being undercover, both flattering alternatives to his current situation.

 

Sometimes he gets to the elevator in time to go down with her, and sometimes he doesn’t.  She makes no particular effort to hold it for him.  It is better that way.  He meets her at the front door to their complex, and continues to scowl as he trails her across the street to campus, where he follows her to her classes and continues to sulk as he sits through all her terrible political courses.

 

For the first year, the story for people who questioned their glue-like attachment was, courtesy of her, of course, that he was a broke exchange student who she took in out of the goodness of her heart.  Thanks in no little part to google and the growing discourse towards her mother’s radical agenda, Daisy’s little secret didn’t stay secret for very long, and Lincoln’s job of keeping her safe grew more and more tedious as people realized his actual purpose.

 

She doesn’t _like_ people knowing what he is, likes it even less than she likes people knowing what she is. If people knowing didn’t make his job harder, he would use the _hell_ out of it to make her miserable.  At least he tells himself he would.

 

(He sees how the friendliness in their eyes becomes guarded once they know.  He understands the isolation.  He tells himself he doesn’t dare feel sorry for her, too.

 

He tells himself a lot.)

 

He stays on the clock until midnight, usually, and follows her everywhere, lest he risk daring to let her out of his sight for more than 24 seconds.  And it’s an exact measurement, too—25 seconds and she is gone.  Unlike whatever night-guard takes over for him, he doesn’t take her bullshit about not being allowed into her apartment—he has trailed her to sketchy parties in the dangerous parts of town too many times to not have his eyes on the windows and the door and her all simultaneously.

 

(“You are ruining my social life, you know that right?”

 

“You can go wherever the hell you want—I just have to be with you.”

 

“Because having a brooding asshole glowering over my shoulder actually increases my chances of making friends!  How thoughtful of you to remind me! Let’s hit every bar and see how many people we can scare away!”

 

“I don’t like this setup any more than you do, _princess_.”)

 

Some days the banter is good-natured, and has a teasing edge to it—but neither of them are shy and neither of them have thin skin, and their words have a way of growing thorns.  She hates when he calls her princess.  He hates that she hates to be seen in public with him.  He apologizes dryly for using the name.  She shrugs and he catches her watching him softly later on, when she shouldn’t be.  He tells himself he doesn’t.

 

It is a shitty setup, but they are in it together.

 

She does her classwork, usually tricking him into doing at least half of her math problems for her, courtesy of the skills accrued from the aforementioned terrible political courses, and she usually goes to bed without saying another word to him.

 

Tonight she closes her books and sits quietly, staring at the pile in front of her.

 

“Do you need something?” He asks, voice edgier than he intends.  She doesn’t answer, not at first.

 

When she looks at him, it is with the same softness as before.

 

It _doesn’t_ make his pulse find an uneasy tempo.

 

“What are you doing for Thanksgiving? Coming back to the Afterlife with me?”

 

There is an odd tone to the way she asks it, and he is a trained agent, he knows she isn’t concerned with whether or not he will be with her.  She wonders _where_ he’ll be.

 

He shrugs.  He doesn’t think she needs to know that he doesn’t have anywhere else to go.

 

“I didn’t ask off,” he says, “if you remind me, I’ll take off Christmas.  All you want for Christmas is _not me_ , right? It’ll be my gift to you.”

 

He is relieved when her odd soft expression hardens into a far more comfortable glare.

 

“Forget I asked.”

 

“Already forgotten.”

 

He goes to his apartment next-door as soon as the night guard arrives, writes a report to be read by the Queen’s security detail, and goes to bed himself.  He hates that all he can think about is the fact that she is the closest thing he has to a friend.

 

The next morning, it all starts over again with 341 flowers, a scowling princess and a fleeing night guard.

 

Her eyes are duller than usual as she scans him and her expression appears more tired than resentful.

 

“You’re here.”

 

His bones ache—he woke up early to get in a workout.  He tells himself he has to stay in shape, show his higher-ups that he wants the reassignment, that he is putting up with this but keeping himself up, staying together for whenever they are ready for him—except with every passing day the workouts feel longer and his muscles feel wearier and he thinks more and more that he is racing towards a non-existent end-goal.

 

“Every day.”

 

He wonders if his voice sounds as dry as hers.  He thinks it probably does because she doesn’t skimp on rolling her eyes as she turns away from him, striding down the hall towards the elevator.

 

Except as he watches, she turns into the stairwell.

 

His legs complain as he picks up the pace a bit, confused by the change of their schedule—pulling the door open after her just as it is falling closed to catch a glimpse of her dark hair bobbing down out of view.  He hurries after her, heart rate speeding slightly in annoyance—till he reaches the bottom to find her waiting in her usual spot beside the front door, arms crossed.

 

“Bored of the usual?” He observes somewhat icily, and she shrugs, disinterest apparent in the slouch of her shoulders.

 

She begins to turn for the door—but then his work phone is vibrating in his back pocket.  He grabs for it.

 

“Wait a second,” he mutters in her general direction, watching just long enough to see her roll her eyes and let the door fall shut before glancing at the screen.

 

It’s the main security detail, and he puzzles over it a moment—wondering what possibly could have prompted a call before even nine in the morning.  It is about to ring out when he finally rushes to answer, pulling the device to his ear.

 

“Campbell.”

 

He waits for a response, looking up to see how much the new disruption in their schedule has pissed off Daisy.

 

Only, Daisy isn’t there.

 

“ _Shit_.”

 

“Sorry agent—still there?”

 

He moves quickly, pushing through the front door and scanning side to side down the empty street.

 

“I’m here,” he responds, frustrated, momentarily happy to blame the princess’s window of opportunity on the entirely inopportune call.  He considers crossing the street, checking around campus—but intuition and three years of spending 18 hours a day with her tell him that class is the last place she will be.  “Have you got something to say or were you hoping I’d make the conversation?” he snaps, growing more and impatient with the call.

 

“You’ve got the princess with you?”

 

He glares at nothing in particular, making a decision and hurrying to the left—attention in full detail mode for anything out of the ordinary, any hints of the princess.  It is cold out and he was still warm from his workout when he got dressed, so he had skipped the jacket and he is now fully regretting the decision and even more fully resenting Daisy and her tendency to bolt.  He never feels more like a babysitter than when he is racing down the streets trying to find where she has run off to.

 

“Sure,” he lies, breathe puffing frozen in front of his face and separating as he continues through it.

 

“We’ve got a code red here.  Keep her close and await further detail.”

 

The caller hangs up and Lincoln shoves his phone unceremoniously into his back pocket, letting out a curse that Daisy would snarkily inform him is inappropriate language to use around a _princess_ , before proceeding to very pointedly use the same word at least eleven times before sunset.

 

Code Red means a direct threat to the crown—to Daisy’s mother the Queen Jiaying.  It means it isn’t safe for her to be off—who the hell knows _where_ —without his protection.  If she isn’t dead, he thinks he is going to personally kill her and gladly accept the punishment—he is pretty certain there is nothing they can do to him that would be worse than this assignment.

 

The coffeeshop he has set his sights on is at the end of the block, and he already is preparing a second option in his head, a second common hideout she thinks he doesn’t know about.  He passes the corner table he usually sits quietly at when she comes here, abandoning all pretense as he pushes through the door, scanning the busy shop for her short, dark hair.

 

He finds her, sitting at a table near the back—and momentarily he is filled with relief, letting his guard go down just slightly, seeing her alright.

 

Except then he realizes she isn’t alone.

 

That is when the anger hits him, and he momentarily considers interrupting whatever little date she is on with the man in front of her, chiding her loudly about racing off when he was taking a call from the main security detail—but it is just a flash, that melts quickly into something else, something still angry but softer, more desperate.

 

Anything could have happened to her without him knowing.   _Anything_.

 

He swallows hard, fighting the growing feeling that can only be described as concern—finding a table near the window where he can keep an eye on her, trying to calm his speeding heart with a slow scan of the little shop.  The front door seems to be the only public entrance and exit, and he has set it in his line of sight to her.  Slowly, he feels his senses begin to settle, feels his own guard slightly give way.

 

He wishes she would have just _told_ him she wanted to skip her awful classes.

 

She is smiling--cheeks still rosy from the cool air—at the dark-haired man in front of her.  She looks happy, laughing here and there, eyes gleaming—it is a rare form to see the princess in.  She is caged and acts accordingly—guarded, snappy, cold.  It isn’t common, to see her acting like the young woman she is—not unless they are entirely alone and he lets his guard down, lets them forget for a moment he is only there to take a shot for her.  She has walls miles high, walls that rival his own.

 

It makes him smile, just a bit, to see her like this.

 

His anger fades, too—and for just a moment, he forgets the warning call that had enabled this escape in the first place.

 

Her date shifts in his seat, and warning bells go off in Lincoln’s head.  The movement is familiar, dangerous—hand angled oddly at his side.  He is saying something and Daisy is laughing and Lincoln shifts uncomfortably for a better view.  He doesn’t want to interrupt this, doesn’t want her to resent him for it.  But uneasiness tingles in his stomach and he shifts to his feet, moving casually nearer to them, hoping to avoid any unwanted attention.

 

Only, he can’t find a better angle and he is becoming more and more nervous, and he phone is vibrating again in his pocket but he doesn’t dare answer—eyes on the man’s hand, still cradled at his hip.

 

Daisy sees him and opens her mouth to say something, but he catches the flash of silver and is moving immediately, years of training taking over his muscle memory as he grabs the man’s wrist and twists, lightning fast—before he even seems to realize he is there.  The weapon clatters to the floor, loaded, but Lincoln’s attentions are still on the man, shoving him back before he bends and grasps the weapon, pointing it at the man.  The café has gone silent around them and he holds the gun steady as he glances at Daisy, wide-eyed and on her feet, chair on the ground behind her, as if she’d rushed to her feet.

 

“Take my phone and get out,” he tells her under his breath, “use the employee entrance.  Go somewhere you have never gone before and make sure you aren’t followed.  Call 1 on the phone when you’re safe and tell them what happened.”

 

He expects her to argue with him, to put up some sort of fight—but she just nods, eyes still wide, taking the space between them and reaching shaking into his back pocket to draw out the phone.  He scans the room slowly as she moves; a barista is on the phone, hopefully with the cops.  The people who aren’t gawking at them are rushing for the door, wisely away from the discourse.

 

The man is smiling an eerie, knowing smile that puts Lincoln’s senses back in overdrive.

 

He hears the click over the quiet uneasiness in the café, and there isn’t time to find the source.

 

“Get down,” he orders, moving his body instinctively around hers.

 

The bang and the searing pain in his shoulder seem to happen simultaneously, and his vision blurs white around the edges—all he sees is the gun clattering to the floor, and a smaller hand reaching quickly to scoop it up.  Two more shots go off, loud in his ear, and he feels Daisy take his good arm as sirens begin to grow loud in the distance.

 

“Hurry,” she urges, and his vision pulses slightly, just enough to see the smoking silver gun is in her hand. “Lincoln, come _on_.”

 

He clutches blindly at his shoulder, pressing against the warm flow of blood and lets her hold onto him, guiding him towards the exit he’d told her to use—not entirely sure why he is going with her and not waiting with the assassins, except that assassins is apparently plural and that he is pretty sure at this point, she might be saving _him_.

 

The pain in his shoulder is white-hot, and feels like it is pulsing through his veins.  The bullet is still lodged into place and suddenly, he realizes that they could be following them.

 

He remembers the smoking gun in Daisy’s hand.

 

Thoughts are swirling groggily in his mind and he struggles to keep up with Daisy’s swift movements as she pushes through the back door and he stumbles out behind her, still clutching his shoulder.  She pauses when she sees him struggling, backtracking to steady him by his good shoulder, fingers digging softly into his skin as she stares up at him in concern.

 

“What do we do?”

 

It takes him a long moment and Daisy snapping in his face for him to remember that he is supposed to have an answer to that.

 

“Phone,” he mumbles weakly, praying she still has it and leaning on the nearest wall, wincing in pain as he attempts to catch his breath.  “Call 1.”

 

“No offense to 1, but shouldn’t we attempt to save our asses first?”

 

“1 isn’t a person, it’s an emergency number,” he says through his teeth, somehow finding correcting her extremely important.  She finds it less important, and glares at him. “Look, I’m slowing you down.  Get somewhere safe then dial 1.  I’ll try to take care of whatever is happening here.”

 

She stares at him dubiously.

 

“You need _medical attention_.  I’m pretty sure a hospital is as safe as it gets—we are going there, together, now.”

 

He shakes his head, growing impatient.

 

“Whoever is after you knows I’m shot—the hospitals are the first places they’ll look.  You need to get off the grid.”

 

“ _We_ need to get off the grid,” she corrects, crossing her arms with a stubborn retaliation he has yet to best even in the most ideal conditions.

 

He groans, but peels himself dizzily from the wall, allowing her to reach and steady him.  Blood is still oozing from his numb wound, but slower now beneath the pressure of his hand.

 

“Where are we going?” He asks.

 

“Just follow me.”


	2. Test of Silence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daisy and Lincoln go on the run and find help with an old friend.
> 
> *Warning that there is some language and frequent discussion of blood in this chapter

It isn’t the first time that he has been shot.  It is not even the first time that he has been shot on the run.  He has a nasty scar parallel to the one the current wound is bound to leave, and a couple between his ribs from an undercover mission gone immensely wrong.  The radiating pain isn’t comfortable by any means, but this isn’t the worst injury he has endured.  By the time they are hurrying away from the café, the pain has settled into a dull throb and he is becoming more and more aware of the scraping metal bullet still lodged somewhere beneath where he clutches the wound, sending the occasional jolt of dizzying misery down his arm.

 

He doesn’t complain.

 

Daisy walks quickly and he stays as close as he can, ignoring the persistent shaking of the phone she has returned to him in his back pocket.  Safety first, check in later.  The last thing they are right now is safe.

 

There is purpose to the steps she is taking, a direction that seems oddly practiced—odd in that he has been at her back for three years and has no idea where she is leading them.  She glances over her shoulder frequently to make sure he is still trailing her, and he tries to ignore the stemming guilt of slowing her down, making her susceptible to attacks when it is his job to be making her as safe as he is capable. 

 

She turns and he tries to tell himself that this is the best he can do, that sending her off without protection would be even  _ less _ ideal.

 

He can’t stop thinking about the way she’d said ‘ _ we ’ _ .

 

“Who was the guy?”

 

He doesn’t even realize he is saying it, really—doesn’t realize he has been picking at the thought either—not till it comes out and it is not at all in the gentle way he thinks he probably ought to have approached the topic.

 

She doesn’t falter and offers only a shrug.

 

“Someone I thought I could trust.”

 

He swallows, trying to focus on decoding the lilts in her tone and ignore the increasing pain in his shoulder.  It is easier thought than done, however, and he finds the aching distraction to be winning out.

 

“More details wouldn’t hurt,” he says after another passing moment, hoping his voice doesn’t come off quite as impatient as he feels. 

 

She nearly lost her life no more than ten minutes ago and she hardly seems shaken—there is no quiver to her voice, no uneasiness in her steps—no uneasiness at  _ all _ .  It is eerie, not a response suited to someone so young and sheltered.

 

It is the kind of response that one of the guys in his old team might have had, shrugging it off and moving on, moving forward and away.

 

It is the response of someone who isn’t  new to being on the receiving end of shots fired.

 

She stops abruptly, turning with a sharp, annoyed movement and meeting his eyes icily.

 

“He was just a guy, alright? If you needed to know more information, I’d tell you more information.  Brace yourself for this one; you aren’t  _ entitled _ to every fucking detail of my life.”

 

She begins to turn away, but whatever annoyance she is feeling has transferred to him, and he lets go of his shoulder to grasp hers—which, retrospectively is a terrible move—sending a fresh wave of pain through his veins.  To his dismay, a small gasp of pain manages to escape him, and the noise translates into the softening of her eyes, which are immediately back on him.

 

“I can’t protect you,” he spits the words through his teeth after a long, uncomfortable moment, “if you won’t tell me what I’m protecting you  _ from _ .”

 

The glare returns, sinking harshly into her expression.

 

“I never asked for this, Campbell.  I don’t need you.”

 

The impressive aching in his shoulder tells him otherwise, and he tries to bite back his angry response—he really does, but he thinks his self-control was left somewhere back before he gave up shoulder rotation to protect her goddamn ass.

 

“Next time let me know sooner so I don’t put my ass on the line,” he snaps, “Getting shot hurts, by the way.  Like hell.  So prepare yourself for that.”

 

She finally shoves him off of her angrily, his jaw tensing as he grasps at his shoulder again.  She is still moving though, and he watches through narrowed eyes as she shrugs her leather jacket to the ground (he only notices now that it is splattered with his blood), and grabs the hem of her shirt, snapping it up above her stomach, never breaking her cool gaze from his. 

 

He is baffled, at first—until his eyes flick to her stomach.

 

There are three raised pink scars, just to the left of her ribs—not small, neat surgery wounds either.  They aren’t uniform, but each is nearly as wide as a quarter—clearly _remarkably_ close-range shots.  He is still staring when she snaps her shirt back down over the old wounds.

 

He regrets his words as he peers back into her dark eyes.

 

“I think I can take it,” she mutters dryly, holding his gaze only a moment longer before breaking away, jaw still tense as she turns from him, reaching to pick up her jacket and wrap it back around her shoulders.  She looks everywhere but at him.  “Stop stalling us.”

 

She doesn’t have to say it twice.  His stomach is twisting with a guilt that he completely resents, but he follows quietly as she picks up her determined steps again.

 

They don’t go much further. 

 

“Don’t talk,” she tells him as she approaches the door.  It’s in the alley—a backdoor into what looks like a bar of some sort, at least from what he can see. “You’re really bad at it.”

 

She knocks on the door three times slowly, before he can snap back at her—and he is left biting his tongue and glaring at the back of her head.  There is no immediate answer and he glances down the alley in the direction they came, squinting to make sure they haven’t been followed. 

 

Every shadow is a threat.

 

He looks back down at Daisy, watching the door expectantly, and shifts his grip on his shoulder.

 

“Are you  _ sure _ you can trust this person?” he asks her—and this time he is careful to make sure his voice is gentle. 

 

He didn’t intend to sound so  _ concerned _ , but it isn’t the first time his voice has betrayed him today. 

 

He can’t stop thinking about her scars.

 

She glances slowly up at him, and he is relieved to see her gaze is not confrontational.

 

“With my life,” she tells him with an affirming nod.

 

He bites back his doubt, but it must show in his eyes because her stare lingers expectantly on him.

 

He lets out a breath.

 

“You told me you thought you could trust the man in the café, too.”

 

To his surprise, she still doesn’t lash out—instead shrugging lightly, a dry smile twitching at her lips but not reaching her eyes.

 

“I lied.”

 

His brow furrows and he opens his mouth to reply, to question her further—but as he is about to speak, the door finally swings open.  A small woman stands in the doorway, and concern lines her face the moment her eyes land on the princess.

 

“Daisy?”

 

“May.  I need help.”

 

Her voice is different when she talks to the woman—taking on a respectful edge he is certainly never on the receiving end of.  She is eyeing them somewhat warily, studying the splatter of blood on Daisy’s jacket—and then growing even more concerned when she sees him—gaze training in on the bloodstained shirt beneath where he clutches his throbbing shoulder.

 

“Who are you?” The woman nods curtly up at him, distrustful eyes scanning him carefully.

 

He opens his mouth to respond, but Daisy is faster.

 

“He’s my bodyguard,” she says simply.  Then, quieter, “he saved my life.  He’s not a threat.  May, you’ve gotta let us in.  There isn’t time.”

 

The woman regards him with her silent, threatening stare a moment longer, before stepping gruffly to the side and holding the door open in a clearly resentful invitation.  Daisy steps in, but the woman’s eyes are still burning darkly into Lincoln—and he hesitates.

 

Daisy glances back at him when she realizes he isn’t at her heels.

 

“She doesn’t bite,” she tells him, rolling her eyes, “hurry up.”

 

He isn’t sure he believes that, but he takes one final scan of the empty alley and follows her through the doorway.  The woman shuts the door behind him, clicking at least three locks into place before turning to face him and Daisy.  The room isn’t well lit—a supply closet of some sort, boxes filling shelves around him—and the gentle buzz of conversation and clink of glass can be heard on the other side of the wall.

 

“Go to the basement,” she tells Daisy in the all-business manner he is beginning to associate with the woman.  “I’ll close up, and then you are telling me everything I need to know.”

 

She nods without argument.

 

“Can you call Bobbi? He needs a doctor.”

 

The woman’s eyes travel to his shoulder again, unshaken, and she nods once.

 

“You remember where the first aid kit is—clean him up.  I’ll get Bobbi here.”

 

With that she disappears around the corner.

 

“Who is she?” Lincoln asks the moment he hears a door shut, but Daisy ignores him—moving through the shelves with a purpose.  He hurries to catch up with her, and finds her after just a moment, heaving an immense stack of boxes to the side.

 

There is a door behind them, and she pushes it open and hits a light switch to reveal a set of stairs going down.  He fails to hide his surprise, and she smirks.

 

“What’s the matter,  _ agent _ ?” She mocks, “Never seen a hidden room before?”

 

He ignores the dig and complies as she motions him forward, taking a couple steps down before turning to watch her shift the boxes back into place behind her prior to shutting the door cautiously and turning back to him.

 

He doesn’t realize how concerned he still is until that soft expression etches itself back onto her face.

 

“I can trust May,” she reiterates quietly, gently.  “This isn’t the first time she’s helped me.”  She makes a small motion towards her stomach, to the scars she revealed earlier.

 

He has never noticed just how deeply emotion seems to swell in her dark eyes.

 

“Come on,” she says, starting to move down the stairs past him. “Take off your shirt.  You’ve got a fucking bullet in your arm.”

 

She says it with an air of authority that he doesn’t entirely hate, and he wants to make some snarky comment about the fact that he certainly has not forgotten the 'fucking bullet' in his arm, but he likes the softness of her voice, and the playful light in her eyes as she passes by him.

 

She is a different person when she isn’t tied down, and he can’t quell the guilt in the pit of his stomach reminding him that he was a part of what left her tied down, that he contributed to her unhappiness.

 

He hesitates but follows her the rest of the way down the stairs. 

 

It isn’t the worst place they could be hiding—it is a concrete box, but it seems to be a storage room for a mismatched collection of crap that has nowhere else to go.  There are a few shelves that look a lot like the ones that filled the storage room above them; some wooden chairs missing pieces of various importance set up around a table—an enormous overstuffed armchair leaking stuffing in one corner and a little cot in another.  Daisy is at one of the shelves, digging through books and boxes that look like they haven’t been moved in years.

 

She glances over her shoulder at him.

 

“Shirt off, Campbell,” she repeats, “make sure whichever chair you pick has at least four legs.”

 

She speaks with the same authority from before, and he listens—crossing to the chairs and rattling a few until he finds one that feels sufficiently stable before removing his hand from his wound, wiggling his stiff fingers a bit before grabbing the hem and peeling it over his head.  It is sticky with blood and he feels the sting when he has to rip the material from around the gunshot, his head spinning.

 

“Alright?” 

 

She has crossed the room and is standing in front of him, holding a little white metal box in one hand and what looks like a dusty bottle of rum in the other.  Her brow is furrowed, reading the lines in his expression, and he half shrugs with the shoulder he can still move.

 

“I’ve been better.”

 

Her eyes flick to his shoulder, and he doesn’t miss when they drift a little lower and then linger.  She shakes her head once and looks back up at him, reaching to take his bloodied shirt from his hands and shifting the chair he’s picked so the back faces her.

 

His stomach is riddled with his own scars—and he thinks she probably notices how closely they match hers.

 

“Sit, I can’t reach you all the way up there.”

 

He watches her drop his shirt to the table as he turns from her, lowering cautiously into the chair—which miraculously stays in one piece. 

 

When her warm fingers gently brush along the skin above the wound, he fights the urge to shrink away from her.  She must feel his muscles tense.

 

“Chill,” she says, and he resents the smirk he can hear in her voice.  “I thought you were supposed to be a badass secret agent.”

 

“And I thought you were supposed to be _not_ a doctor,” he snaps uneasily, and she actually laughs out loud.

 

“You are such a baby.  Sit still, all I’m doing is wasting rum—which I’m actually a professional at.”

 

She pulls her hand back, and he hears the bottle popping open.

 

“Did you just call me a waste of rum?” He asks, still not entirely trusting her.  The discussion is a good distraction.

 

“I’m pretty sure I called me a waste of rum,” she answers, touching his shoulder again, softer this time. He catches motion in the corner of his eye, and glances sideways to see her holding the rum out to him over his shoulder.  “But you are welcome to join my exclusive club.  Since you saved my life and everything.”

 

He takes the neck of the bottle, their fingers brushing—and he eyes it warily a moment, knowing he shouldn’t.  Until he considers his prospective night, and the only option seems to be taking a long, burning draw before holding it back to her.  He hears the liquid slosh as she takes her own drink.

 

Her fingers were shaking when he brushed across them, and he knows that she realizes just how not-bulletproof she is.

 

“Saving your life is my job,” he mutters.  Saving  _ his _ life, however, is not hers.

 

She doesn’t answer, and he feels soft material pressing against his back beneath his wound.

 

“I’m using your shirt,” she says after a moment. “May will get you something new to wear.  It’s—“

 

“It’s destroyed,” he affirms, “don’t worry about it.”

 

She doesn’t make any move to continue, and he turns in his seat as the hand holding the shirt falls away from him, seeking out her exhausted eyes.  She is staring at the rum, still shaking in her hand—and she looks miles away.

 

“Hey,” he says gently, and she starts slightly, glancing up at him, the lost look still deep in her eyes.  “You look like hell.”

 

She looks like she is carrying the weight of more than just her world on her shoulders.  She shakes her head, like she did earlier when she caught herself staring at him—like she is banishing some thought that doesn’t belong.

 

“So do you.”

 

It is something that she would usually say coolly, angrily—but this Daisy isn’t usual, not anymore.  There is the tiniest hint of affection in her tone, so small he thinks he must be imagining it—and she forces an even smaller smile across her lips.

 

She motions for him to turn back around, holding the shirt back against him and offering a murmured warning before splashing the alcohol on his wound and scrubbing the area around it gently, with softer touches as she nears the marred skin—clearing away the dried blood and dabbing painfully to keep the wound from closing around the bullet.  Her soft movements are practiced.

 

_ He hardly knows her at all. _


	3. Laws of Friendship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lincoln meets one of Daisy's friends. Daisy opens up.

He has to do something, find something to keep his mind busy once she finishes with his shoulder.  Her doctor friend still hasn’t arrived and the thoughts in his head are ones that shouldn’t be there under normal circumstances—let alone  _ these _ circumstances. 

 

The best excuse he can think of to stand as far away from her as possible is to pull out his phone and dial 1 as he crosses to the opposite corner of the little concrete basement.  She is rifling through the shelves again, and while her brow is furrowed in concentration like she knows exactly what she is looking for, he can’t imagine that she does.

 

A little voice in the back of his mind unhelpfully wonders if she is trying to occupy herself in the same way he is trying to keep himself busy.

 

He shakes his head, hard, to banish the thought—forcing himself to turn oddly into the back corner, studying the uneven stitches in the blue quilt covering the cot.

 

The other end  _ finally _ goes through to the checkpoint, and he pulls the phone from his ear to punch in his verification code.

 

“Agent?”

 

Lincoln recognizes the voice of his adviser, and allows himself a short breath of relief that whatever hell had happened earlier seems to have been quelled.

 

“I’m here.  Checking in.  There was an attempt on the princess’s life—“

 

“We’ve got the details, Campbell.  Just need your location so I can send men to get her home safe.”

 

He hesitates, tongue becoming heavy in his mouth as he mulls carefully through the order. 

 

“Respectfully, sir—that isn’t protocol,” he says cautiously after a long moment of pressing silence.

 

He only has enough room for one mistake in the space of a day, and the now terribly familiar pulsing throb in his shoulder is a constant reminder he has already used all his screw-ups for the week.  He can’t put her in any more danger than he has already let her fall into—can’t risk it.  Saying her location over a phone line, regardless of how secure it is meant to be—is more than risky.  Especially with the current threat over her head.

 

_ And her mother’s. _

 

The thought hits him suddenly, and he swallows.

 

“There was a code red, earlier…“   _ It is why he lost the princess in the first place, _ “is Jiaying—“

 

“The queen is secure,” his adviser’s voice has taken on an impatient edge, and Lincoln clenches his teeth. “I wish I could say the same for the princess.”

 

He swallows, glancing over his shoulder to where she is still digging through the shelves—somehow managing to make them even messier than they were when they’d first descended into the basement. 

 

“She  _ is _ safe, sir.  I’m with her.  We’re in a safehouse.  Per  _ protocol _ .”

 

Another pause.

 

His senses are slowly shifting into overdrive.  Focusing on the unsteady breaths of the man on the other end of the line, the quiet shuffling of the crap on the shelves on the other side of the room, creaking from the bar above them—there is an uneasy chill settling against his spine, a warning that she isn’t safe.  That he isn’t doing enough.

 

He is slipping, losing the precise command of his sixth sense that had made him a good agent to begin with.  Knowing  _ something _ is wrong but being unable to pinpoint exactly what.  His skills are rusty at best, pushed to rest after his last mission—too painful to draw back on.  Too unpredictable.

 

“You’ll tell me when the threat is apprehended?”

 

When he hears an almost imperceptible click somewhere on the line, his rogue gut tells him to shut the phone off, to hang up and not pick it up again. 

 

His gut is hardly reliable, and neither is he—not in the state he is in.

 

“Yes.”

 

He clicks the phone off, and stares at the cot a long moment more—rusty wheels in the back of his mind creaking painfully to life for the first time in years.  Shifting back into defense.

 

A crash from behind him nearly makes him jump out of his skin, whirling sharply around to find the content of one of the shelves almost entirely fallen to a mess on the floor around Daisy—who stands frozen with her hands up in front of her.

 

“Oops.”

 

His heart is still jumping against his chest when a loud scraping sounds from up the stairs, and the door slowly creaks open.  The woman from earlier steps down onto the stairs, a tall blonde at her heels pulling the stack of boxes back into place before following behind her.  She holds what looks like a medical bag, and he belatedly realizes that the aforementioned Bobbi is a  _ girl _ , and it is her.

 

He decides to not state the revelation, pretty sure he has pissed off Daisy more than enough already today.

 

The women are staring at Daisy, still frozen in place with the mess piled around her—and neither look surprised.

 

So they know her just as well as he does.

 

“Are you stuck?” Bobbi asks her, amusement evident in her lilting tone.  Daisy throws a halfhearted glare over her shoulder.

 

“Just taking a moment to regret a few life choices,” she retorts, moving to carefully step out of the pile of crap.  He isn’t expecting it when her eyes fall on him, and she nods in his direction.

 

“He has had a bullet in his shoulder for an hour and only complained like twice so I guess you should fix him or something.”

 

The other woman follows her gaze, while May rolls her eyes at Daisy’s mess—crossing her arms as she stares at it.

 

“Crouch as you approach him, you could even hold out a hand for him to sniff.  So you don’t spook him,” Daisy advises helpfully, smirking, and he scowls at her. 

 

“Did you already forget that this,” he motions at his shoulder, “was supposed to be in your skull? Because I didn’t.”

 

Her smile doesn’t falter, and somehow despite the fact that she is teasing him, the gentle expression is a relief to see.

 

“He’s friendly, I promise,” she says loudly under her breath to Bobbi—and he shakes his head as the other woman looks between the two of them with a raise of a brow.

 

She sizes him up momentarily, and doesn’t seem phased in the slightest by him.

 

“I’m not sure how familiar you are with our friendly princess, but I’ll apologize for her in case you’re new,” she tells him, and motions for him to follow her as she turns towards the table where Daisy had cleaned him up earlier—setting her bag heavily onto the table and unzipping it, immediately getting to work digging through it.

 

He crosses the room back towards the steady chair, lowering himself back into it at Bobbi’s prompting nod towards it. 

 

“Could be worse.” She notes, all business, and when he hears the relieving snap of plastic gloves before her fingers press into the skin around the wound, it sets any concerns he previously might have had at ease.  “I’m sure it hurts like shit, but you should heal quick, minus mobility.  Blessing of long distance shots, right?  By placement I’m guessing your muscle got the brunt of it… I doubt you even have to worry much about infection.”

 

“You’re a doctor,” he says, and it isn’t a question.

 

“I am,” she affirms in the same business tone as before.  He glances over his shoulder, but not at her—looking to find Daisy.  She and May have moved to the cot in the far corner, sitting perched on the edge and chatting in hushed tones.

 

Bobbi must notice the movement, because she pauses what she is doing.

 

“Don’t take it too personally, buddy.  They go way back—and, you’re an agent, you know she can’t be too careful.”

 

They fall quiet, and he tears his eyes from the back corner—offering the privacy they are clearly seeking.

 

It isn’t like he has told her everything he knows, either. 

 

He will.  He promises himself he will—even if what he knows is only courtesy of an unreliable gut feeling.

 

Bobbi lets out a dry laugh, and he glances over his shoulder curiously.  She holds up a little vial in explanation.

 

“You’re lucky as hell—I’ve got a topical on me.”

 

She cleans his skin again, with alcohol wipes this time—apparently he is not the only one who doesn’t trust Daisy’s doctoring skills.

 

“How do you know her?”

 

He thinks it is definitely an intrusive question, but he also knows he isn’t getting any of the information that he needs from Daisy any time soon.  She doesn’t trust him fully—not yet.  He knows if the roles were reversed, he wouldn’t be able to trust her either.  He doesn’t blame her.  But he does need to protect her, and if that means prying, he will pry.

 

Bobbi hesitates.

 

“Through May.  She… this isn’t the first time I’ve done something like this for her.”

 

She is being vague—but he can tell she is trying to give him what she can.

 

“Brace yourself, I’m going to de-bullet you.”

 

It hurts like hell, but she is quick and efficient—applying pressure after he hears her drop the shard of metal onto the table and applying the topical after the bleeding slows back down. It doesn’t take long to do its work, numbing his skin so when she starts stitching him back together, he only feels an uncomfortable tugging.

 

“You chose a good person to risk your life for,” she tells him softly after a long, focused silence.  She continues faster, murmured; “Maybe less of a good person to be  _ into _ , but…”

 

“Woah, wait,” he interrupts, cringing when the tensing of his muscles sends a jolt of pain down his arm.  May and Daisy have gone silent, and when he glances at them he sees them both looking startled towards him.  He clears his throat, turning away from them and continuing under his breath so only Bobbi can hear, “I am not  _ into _ her.”

 

Bobbi is silent, and May and Daisy slowly go back to talking quietly.

 

“All I’m saying is that she has been to hell and back and she’s still not done yet,” she finally says at the same volume as his own whisper with a tad more aggression, tugging at another stitch, “and it wouldn’t be the first time an asshole took advantage of that.”

 

He thinks she pulls the stitch into place a little more violently than entirely necessary, and he cringes.

 

“It is my job to protect her.  I promise I wouldn’t have taken the goddamn shot if it weren’t—I don’t have anything to prove, alright?”

 

He isn’t sure whether it is the truth or not, but the sharp nails digging into his sensitive back pull back, and when she speaks again, her voice is softer but no less threatening—especially considering the vulnerable position he is in.

 

“Keep doing your job.  You have no idea how important it is.”

 

He wants to tell her that yes, she is right, he hasn’t got a flipping clue about  _ anything _ —but she has still got a needle digging in and out of his shoulder so he bites his tongue—resenting his position all over again.

 

She starts to wrap his shoulder after she presses a bottle of antibiotics into his palm and after she packs her bag back up, and he watches as May disappears back up the stairs.

 

“She’s getting you a shirt,” Daisy seems to have materialized at his side, and when he looks up at her the soft smiles from before are gone again.  “I mean, no one’s going to complain if you leave it off, but…”

 

He swallows an angry curse when Bobbi pulls his bandage extra tight—which feels like an extremely unfair warning shot, since Daisy was the one initiating the harmless flirting—but he again doesn’t dare argue with her.  Contrary to what the gunshot in his shoulder might imply, he has halfway decent survival tendencies—and he is certain that pissing off the blonde is a path straight to hell.

 

He glares at the floor instead, trying to remind himself that they both are just doing what they can to keep Daisy from harm.

 

“Geez, it wasn’t that bad, was it? Bobbi is great at fixing things.”

 

He draws his stare from the ground, smiling wryly back up at her.

 

“The best.”

 

She finishes without any further harm to him, and Daisy stands by until she zips her bag and steps away from him.  The topical is beginning to wear and his skin is beginning to tingle as he rises to his feet, turning towards Bobbi.

 

“Thank you,” he tells her genuinely. 

 

She shrugs, moving towards the stairs.

 

“Thank Daisy.  She’s the boss.”

 

As she reaches the top, she glances back down at him.

 

“Don’t forget the antibiotics.  You don’t want to get infected.”

 

He nods.

 

“Don’t worry, I’ll do what you said.”

 

She nods back gratefully, disappearing out the door.  As it shuts behind her, awkward silence falls.  He wonders what time it is—he is exhausted, but hardly any time could have really passed since the morning.

 

“I guess I owe you.  For bringing me here.”

 

Daisy is still standing beside him, looking everywhere but at him until he speaks and her eyes meet his.  She shrugs lightly.

 

“And I owe you for getting shot for me.  Call it even.”

 

They fall quiet again, and he can’t help but notice their close proximity, thinking about Bobbi’s words—and suddenly wondering if she might not have been quite as off as he initially thought.  He swallows, delving back into his thoughts and remembering his earlier vow to himself.  To tell her.  Trust goes both ways, after all.  He isn’t sure how he can expect her to trust him to protect her if he doesn’t make the first move.

 

“Your mom was targeted this morning.  That was the call I was answering when…” he lets his voice trail, not sure of how to say it without accusation in his tone.  “I think my adviser knows more than he is telling me about whatever this threat is.  I think… it might be serious.”

 

Her expression goes solemn when he mentions her mother.

 

“Is she…”

 

“She’s fine,” he assures her, “she’s safe now.”

 

She nods once, sharply, and she swallows hard, eyes scanning his expression slowly, like she is adding something up. Then;

 

“The man I met with this morning… he wasn’t a friend.  He wasn’t… there was no trusting him.”

 

She speaks slowly, meticulously, picking each of her words with care and staring over his shoulder at the shelf she’d knocked the contents off of earlier.  Then her attention flicks back to him and she is studying him again, as carefully as she has picked her words.

 

“Daisy, you were right earlier,” he says quietly, against all training he has ever gotten. 

 

She is opening up—regardless of what that might mean for her, she is opening up and as an agent, as the guy who needs to know everything he can to protect her—he should be letting her.  

 

This weak spot he has developed is dangerous—it could hurt her.  Bobbi wasn’t wrong at all.  He continues anyway.

 

“You don’t owe me an explanation.”

 

Her smile is dry, but her eyes are gentle and soft.

 

“I haven’t heard that one before,” she says honestly, and he knows the breaking meant-to-sound-casual tone.

 

Her gaze drifts to his wrist, and there is no reason for her to—but after a breath, she reaches out, fingers looping delicately around his lower arm before her eyes flick back up to him, serious now—almost pleading.

 

“I trust you, Lincoln.”

 

There are deep lines above her brow as she watches for his reaction, swallowing again.  Her fingers around his wrist are soft and warm, the touch setting a delicate tingling into his veins.  She hardly  ever  calls him by his first name.

 

“And I want to tell you everything.  But I can’t.  I can’t—there’s too much to say,” another pause, and he isn’t sure if he imagines her fingers growing tighter around his wrist. “I knew… I had an idea of what was going to happen today.  You weren’t supposed to be there—hell, I thought you were a part of it, until you interrupted it.”

 

He blinks.

 

“You knew he was an assassin?”

 

She opens her mouth with the same slowness as before, but is interrupted with a crash from somewhere up above them.  The door swings inward and May is standing in the doorway—a gun in one hand, dark blue material in the other that she throws directly at his chest.  He catches it with his good hand, puzzling only a moment longer before realizing it is a shirt.

 

“You’ve been made,” she snaps down the stairs at them.  “Get weapons and take Andrew’s van.  They’re upstairs now; you need to hurry.”


	4. An Ambitious Head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Major shoutout to my dear friend Lauren for spending Christmas morning betaing this for me.

“You need to dump your clothes.”

He knows the princess well enough to know that the words aren’t going to go over well with her, and it is why it has taken him a solid ten miles to break the uneasy silence that has fallen between them since they had slipped out the back of May’s bar.

She looks up sharply from the passenger side, dark eyes widening as one of her eyebrows shoots up.

“Excuse me?”

He may be out of practice but he feels certain that neither of the women that they encountered betrayed Daisy – regardless of whether what she told him about trusting them was truth or lie.

“You need to lose your top layer.  You’re bugged, it is the only way they could find us as quickly as they did.”

She doesn’t move, and he can feel her staring daggers into the side of his head as he drags to a halt at another red light.

He is starting to feel wary in the girl’s presence.  She has lied to him, almost endlessly, long since before he saved her life.  And returning hunch or not, he finds himself entirely incapable of reading her or her intentions or even whether what she says to him is the truth.  She is disorienting, and it makes keeping her safe one of the more difficult challenges he has faced – but regardless of all of this and duty be damned, he has found that he  _ wants _ her to be kept safe.  That he is beginning to sense that specialness that Bobbi and May both already seemed well aware of.

“So not happening.”

It is more infuriating than when their unspoken agreement was to hate each other and be done with it.

He lets out a breath, dropping his hands from the wheel to stiffly shift the enormous shirt gifted to him by May off his bad shoulder and over his head, throwing it unceremoniously in her direction and trying not to snort when he passes a sideways glance to find it nailed her in the face.

“They’re just going to keep following us if you don’t shake however many bugs they’ve got piled onto you.  Come on Daisy, you know how this works.” He steals one more glance at her scowl before the light changes.  “Hurry so we can dump them at the next abandoned building.”

She finally, reluctantly complies – unclicking her safety belt and clattering unceremoniously over the back of her seat into the trunk, mumbling mostly unkind words directed in his general direction under her breath.

“I can’t get rid of my jacket,” she calls after a moment, and he looks instinctively to the mirror to seek out her gaze – drawing his eyes embarrassedly back to the street when he catches half a glance of her almost-bare shoulder blades.

He swallows.

“That’s where the majority of the trackers are going to be. You have to.”

She lets out a small noise of annoyance, and he has to remind himself to keep his eyes on the road.

“I’m not getting rid of it.  I’ll dig out the trackers.”

It is his turn to begin to grow annoyed, drawing in a long breath as he tries to calm his tense nerves.  The end of the business sector is drawing close, and he wants to leave the trackers deep in one of the abandoned and crumbling buildings to buy themselves as much time as possible. 

“Daisy, you can replace the jacket. You can get fifty new jackets.  Hell, I threw my jacket back there somewhere – you can have  _ it _ .  It will take you all goddamn night to get all the trackers, and even then you might miss some and by then whoever the hell you pissed off is going to have found us again.  Lose it.”

The jacket in question is made of dark ratty leather, and is easily three sizes too large for the petite girl – regardless, it is a staple in her day-to-day wardrobe, and she has clearly grown an unhealthy attachment to it.

“I can’t replace this jacket,” her voice is growing frustrated, and this time he doesn’t catch himself before throwing a scowl at her in the rearview.  She is in drowning somewhere in the enormous shirt now, shimmying angrily out of her jeans as she in turn scowls at his reflection. “It won’t be the same.”

“Do whatever the hell you want,” he finally snaps, feeling like he has stepped right back into seven hours ago, firing passive aggressive shots back and forth with Before Daisy, “but there are things harder to replace than jackets.”

She falls silent, but he doesn’t dare let himself believe that he has won the argument.  When hell freezes over, maybe. 

After a moment she speaks again, voice smaller but still angry and petulant.

“It really isn’t fair that I’m the only half-naked one here.”

He bites back a remark about already paying his dues when he had nearly half his arm removed along with the bullet in it back in May’s basement.

“You’re wearing my shirt,” he reminds her dryly instead, “And I’d know if I’d been bugged.”

He internally wills them back into silence.  Daisy takes the cue and doesn’t speak again, crawling clumsily back to the front a few moments later and shoves her clothes (leather jacket and all) onto the middle console as she smooths the giant shirt back down over her knees.  She doesn’t look at him and he doesn’t look at her, not until he pulls the van off into a shadowed old parking garage against one of the last buildings on the block.

“I’m running in, dumping the clothes and then we’re getting out,” he tells her as he kills the engine and reaches for the pile.  “Stay put and stay quiet – give me five minutes.”

Leaving her alone is against his better judgment, but he’ll move quicker on his own and he does – shivering as he leaves the clothes in the dank basement and making it back to the van in 3 minutes flat.

Her mood has taken a dramatic turn by the time they are back on the road.

“So you just left my clothes in an abandoned building.  That’s gotta at least rank on the list of weirdest things you’ve ever done.”

His shoulder is beginning to ache more fully again as the numbing agents wear off, and he doesn’t bother shrugging.

“Not really.”

It isn’t even the  _ first _ time that he has left someone’s bugged clothes in an abandoned building, but he doesn’t tell her that.

She falls back into silence as he drives, contemplating the least conspicuous place to stop, but he feels her eyes on him nonetheless.

A part of him likes knowing she is watching.

He stops at an inn near the outskirts of Afterlife.  They are only an hour or so out from the palace, but by protocol he knows better than to take her directly there, especially being trailed.  Dusk is just beginning to fall as he turns the car into the lot, ache in his shoulder slowly turning back into a dull throb.  It’ll only be worse, more stiff, after a night of rest – but the rest of his body, and Daisy, need to turn in regardless.

He tells her to stay put again and walks around to the trunk to finds his own jacket where he’d tossed it, gingerly pulling it over his shoulders and zipping it to the top.  He stops at her door before passing into the lobby.

“I’ll get a room and then I’ll go get you some new clothes.”

He leaves her in the room with the gun and backtracks to the Target they passed a few blocks before the inn, parking the van in the most shadowed spot in the lot and giving himself another mental timer to beat, trying to continue to ignore the pain in his shoulder.  A t-shirt and jeans.  Tylenol.  Food.  Water.  Checkout.  Eight minutes.

He makes it in nine – remembering at the checkout the previous fight over her jacket and letting out a long frustrated breath before abandoning his spot to speed back to the clothes and grab the first leather jacket he sees among the colorful shelves, internally chiding himself for the time-consuming nature of … whatever the hell it was he was doing.

It takes four minutes to drive back to the inn, unlock the door, and drop the bags unceremoniously on the edge of the bed that she – unsurprisingly, he finds himself thinking – isn’t in.

The shower is running and he empties the bags, piling her clothes neatly on the corner of the bed near the bathroom door and tearing open the Tylenol.  He hadn’t been thinking too hard when he grabbed the package and he regrets it now, finding a couple sheets of a few pop-out pills in the container instead of the full bottle he’d been hoping for. 

He digs the unmarked orange bottle Bobbi gave him earlier from his pocket and carefully pops the twelve pills in with the antibiotics, only fishing out a couple along with one of the big white pills once he has finished, downing them all in one swallow.  The handful of painkillers won’t last long, and he hopes the pain in his shoulder fades accordingly.

With his luck today alone, he tries not to allow himself too much hope on that front.

After another minute he hears the shower flip off, and a moment later Daisy peeks out the door, wrapped tight in a towel.  She smiles a little when she sees him.

He nods at the edge of the bed where he has folded her t-shirt and jeans.  He isn’t sure if they are her size, he’s not even sure he looked at the sizes – but she looks gratefully at him regardless as she scoops them up.  Better than a t-shirt as big as she is, he thinks.

(He also thinks she might have already forgiven him, despite her earlier rage.)

Her hair is still dripping down her shoulders when she re-emerges from the bathroom, clothes more or less fit to her body.  He is working on an energy bar, and she accepts the box he offers as she comes to sit quietly beside him on the edge of the bed.

There is no homework to be done, no TV in the corner to be played to fill the empty silence as they both chew their food and stare at their feet – letting their loud thoughts silently muffle out all other noise.

Then;

“How is your shoulder?”

She asks him gently, kindly even – and when he glances sideways at her he finds her eyes already on him.  He swallows whatever snarky response is on the tip of his tongue at the solemnness of her dark eyes.

The Tylenol has already started to do its job, and he manages half a shrug.

“I’ll live,” he tells her honestly, and she nods, but doesn’t look entirely content with the reply.  “Don’t worry about me, Daisy. Really, I’m doing better.  I’ll be alright.”

He is certain he won’t be saying the same thing after resting the wound for the night, but he doesn’t like the discontent in her eyes.  Which reminds him of his impulse purchase, the only thing still bagged at his side.  He sighs and lifts it into her lap, suddenly painfully conscious of just how stupid a waste of time the item had been.

He drops it in her hands without comment, and looks at his feet when she pulls the leather from the bag.

“Maybe your old one wasn’t replaceable, but this’ll at least keep you warm,” he says, trying to sound disinterested, when silence stretches between them.

He looks up a little, only enough to see her fingers knotting tightly into the dark material – knuckles white with the pressure behind them.  He can feel the tension of her loss, finally lets himself understand the attachment was to much more than a ratty old jacket.

It is an odd sort of instinct that makes him reach to gently lay one of his hands over hers.  Her skin is cold, regardless of the gentle heat still drifting lazily out the cracked bathroom door.

“I wish you’d stop being so nice to me.”

The words take him slightly more off guard than her sudden movement of pulling her hands away from him, and when he finally draws his eyes back to her face he only catches the briefest glimpse of teary eyes before she turns away from him.

He tries not to scowl at her, but loses the battle – still just as annoyed at himself.  His job isn’t to keep her comfortable – it is to keep her alive.

When she looks back at him, the tears he still isn’t sure he saw are replaced with a glare of her own.

“You really prefer all the miserable energy we drain into hating each other?” He asks stiffly, and the angry lines of her glare deepen.

“I prefer not caring about more than I need to, yeah,” the words snap bitterly off of her tongue and she rises up off the bed, pacing away from him, then back, then away again – impatient footsteps filling in the empty silence. 

It is that awful word again – care – and  _ again _ he hates that he understands, that he knows exactly where the ill-confined frustration rises from.  It is the same place as the jacket, and the same place as the lies, and the same place where he has shoved the tattered remains of his past career – deep, out of sight, and constantly steaming beneath the surface.  He understands, and he cares too.

He is just as angry as she is about it.

He lets her pacing continue to fill the quiet.

It is a few minutes before she slows to a stop – a few paces in front of where he is still sat, watching her frustrated movements.  Her shoulders sag as she lets out a long breath.

“I had the same body guard for five? Six year maybe? Before you.  He was technically…” she pauses as he cautiously meets her eyes, finding an odd sort of desperateness in them.  A reaching need for connection. “He was technically still in training, but I was young and… it was a good match.”

She is still holding the jacket he gave her, he notices, and her knuckles are going on white again.  He keeps silent.

“I don’t… I don’t make a lot of lasting friendships but Trip,” she pauses again, tongue stumbling over the name like it is an out-of-practice hobby, “he was my best friend.  The first time this happened –“ she motions loosely around them, at the general situation, he presumes, “he took the shots for me, too.  But not in the shoulder.”

She smiles dryly, sarcastically, almost – and he pretends not to see the water pooling in her eyes.

“And then my mother replaced my entire guard with new agents I didn’t trust – and you.”

There is another pause, a longer one – and he can’t break away from her gaze.  He still keeps his mouth shut, waiting for her to continue.

When she speaks again her voice is much softer – still angry, venomous and slow.

“So, you know, sorry if I’m a little beyond hesitant to be all buddy-buddy all over again.”

Her apology sounds more like an accusation, but for once it doesn’t irk him.

The story is too familiar, too ingrained in his own walls.  But it does hit a nerve that still isn’t quite ready to be prodded.

He knows better than to appeal to her gently, to apologize for something she undoubtedly views as her own fault. 

“So it’s been what, three years since either of us last had a genuine connection with another human being?” He notes, a little more dryly than he intends. “At least now we know we unquestionably deserve each other.”

She doesn’t look like she actually resents the accusation, half a shrug rather more along the lines of passive agreement, but she rolls her eyes slightly anyway.

 

(It is a lie.  It is a blatant lie -- the connection bit.  He thinks -- he hesitantly lets him believe -- the new sort of way her eyes settle on him now means that she knows.)

“You can really be an asshole when you’re in a mood,” she notes, taking the small step between them and sinking defeated back into the spot beside him.  He follows her gaze the whole way, watching that oddly affectionate edge still lighting the dark eyes staring back at him.

“You told me to stop being nice,” he reasons, swallowing as he searches for something to say, anything that isn’t what he is actually  _ thinking _ . “While we’re calling each other out, I’d like to make sure I get in that you are ridiculously spoiled.”

She surprises him when she smirks a bit at his words– and he finds himself wondering when her face had drifted so near to his.

“I’m not spoiled,” she tells him, lips still quirked slightly, and the bed creaks beneath them when she shifts at his side. “I’m just good at getting what I want.”

He thinks that he would definitely stand by that claim – though it is something that he never could have imagined thinking of the Daisy he thought he knew that morning.  She doesn’t stop fighting, hasn’t so much as slowed down, chasing whatever end it is she is after.  He admires the trait, admires her – and he is staring, he is drinking in the lines and the freckles and the twinkle in her eyes that he knows so well through an entirely different lens.

“Maybe neither of us have a goddamn clue,” he murmurs, not entirely sure if he means that they neither have a clue about the other, or about themselves, or about something else entirely.

He does know that he can see the  _ care _ , the feeling she is swearing against possibly harder than him – written clearly into her own eyes that are flicking across his expression in turn.  Her fingers blindly brush his calf and press into his knee.  With her footsteps stopped, all he can hear is his own quickening pulse pounding against his skull as her conflicted gaze drifts nearer, as her lips ghost faintly over his – as her forehead finding friction against his.

He clenches his teeth against his impulse – to clutch at her hair, to capture her lips in his, to press near to her – instead letting out a breath that mingles with hers, trying faintly to remind himself of the innumerable reasons why drifting closer, melting nearer to her as his nose brushes the bridge of hers is exactly the opposite of the reaction he should be having.

Her free hand finds his shoulder, barely there over the wound that’s ache has ceased to a dull distraction – and the movement sends fire burning through his veins.

He is pretty sure he is going to kiss her regardless of the few meager reasons he has managed to draw to mind of why not to.

He makes the decision in a split second shared with the click of the door -- lips just meeting before the noise reaches his ears, before he is tugged sharply back to reality and away from her, and whatever was happening between them.

It occurs to him three precious beats too late that he doesn’t know where she is keeping the gun.

First beat; a familiar dark haired man moves through the doorway as if he belongs.  Second beat, he is moving away from her, reaching for where his holster should be but isn’t.  Third beat, the man has a gun pulled on her – he isn’t aiming to shoot. 

Lincoln is too distracted to move fast enough to draw out even a stalemate.

Beat four:  _ Whatever happens now is on him. _

Beat five: She is still holding tight to the jacket.


	5. Might and Wit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pasts are revealed.

His wrists ache, bruised and chafing from the disturbingly familiar press of cuffs against his joints.  He is sat upright, leaned awkwardly forward — cheek pressed to a rough surface that seems to measure up into a table.

One of the first things Alisha taught him was how to analyze his surroundings.

_(“Don’t even open your eyes ‘till you’ve measured the exact metric depth of the shit you’ve gotten yourself into, Campbell.”)_

He thinks of all he _missed_ the last time he saw his Supervising Officer and swallows hard against the unwelcome bump in his throat — pressing back harder against the unknown beyond his eyelids and the sheer exhaustion still threatening his senses.

He feels a pressing in his pocket — and his heart pounds momentarily at the hope that it might be his gun — before he remembers the throb, suddenly angrily present again in his shoulder and the consequent medicine cabinet in the little bottle against his thigh.

The air around him is still and silent, separate from his own carefully monitored breaths.

Daisy isn’t with him.

The exact metric depth of shit he is in is bordering on hell’s gate, because when her name dances across his mind his heart picks up a quicker pulse, and his lips tingle against the memory of hers.  The concern he feels burn up inside of him isn’t strictly professional — he isn’t sure it is professional at all — and he knows the disaster it is liable to get him into.

He pushes her to the back of his mind-- pushes that awful emotion, the caring he would’ve been glad never to feel again — as far out of the equation as it allows him to.

He swallows.  He breathes.

There is an odd familiarity around him that he can’t quite shake.

[[MORE]]

He takes another slow breath, and another — before he opens his eyes.

He is in a chair — cuffed to a chair — cheek pressed to a chipping wooden table as he imagined. The room is small, nothing more than a cookie-cutter interrogation room with a two way straight across from him.

It is just an interrogation room — one indecipherable from the next — but still, his heart stammers in his chest.

He lifts his head, cheek tingling numbly, just as a door clicks open somewhere behind him.

Lincoln doesn’t recognize the man that walks in — but he recognizes the way he takes his time, shutting the door with a careful ease, pulling back his own chair with no particular drive — he has used the tactic himself countless times, flaunting his confidence. Forcing the poor guy cuffed to the opposite end of the table to question exactly how confident he is himself.

He tries to focus on the ritual, tries to identify the techniques and play away from the effect they are meant to have on him.  He doesn’t know what this man wants, but he has already decided he won’t be giving him a thing.

The man who sits across from him is nothing special — average height, build — he could take him if it came to it.  But the interrogation room is almost certainly locked from the outside, and his eyes flick to the two way mirror behind the man, which will have droves of other men behind it that he can’t analyze, can’t prepare for.

And he doesn’t know where Daisy is.

“Agent Campbell,” the man greets him lazily after another waster moment, nodding slightly as he draws his gaze.  

Lincoln stares back silently.

“We want you to know you aren’t in any trouble.”

He can’t help it when a snort presses out of him, and he glances pointedly at his cuffs to validate the noise.

“Nothing like chaining a guy to a table in an interrogation room to make him feel innocent,” he smiles sarcastically, and the other man’s expression doesn’t change.

“You aren’t in any trouble, Agent,” the man reiterates dryly. “We simply want to know what the Princess told you to convince you to take her on the run.”

The question takes him off guard, and he feels his face betray him with momentary shock — but he is quick to wipe it away.

He thinks that the man’s words should linger more poignantly in the air between them, that he should be more wary of the instinct that causes him to immediately disregard the possibility that maybe, just possibly — he isn’t on the side of things that he thinks he is. It isn’t reassuring that even the faintest consideration that the past day has been any sort of facade on her part causes his stomach to twist anxiously.

“Who is ‘we’?”

He forces the words past his lips to push past the questioning turmoil the interrogator surely intended to set into his veins.

He holds the other man’s hard gaze unfalteringly, until his shoulder sends an impatient twinge of pain down his arm which he can’t quite keep from translating to the faintest of grimaces.  The other man glances at his shoulder, and Lincoln can practically see the flipping cards behind his eyes as he swaps tactics.

“Do you want something for that shoulder, Agent?” he asks, voice taking on the faintest of a faked concerned edge.

“I want to see Dai— I want to see the Princess.”

“That can’t be done.”

_“Who are you?”_

“I can’t —“

“Alright,” he spits, “so here’s where I stand — if you really want me to believe I’m not in any trouble, you’re going to need to start backing that with a real strong support real damn quick, because so far expectations are not matching up to reality.”

The man stares back at him slightly dumbfounded — an expression Lincoln is puzzled to find himself beginning to expect.  He steals a half of a glance behind him, at his reflection in the two-way — wondering if someone with more experience is behind it, biding his time.

“You could start by uncuffing me,” he offers, jangling his wrists pointedly at the man. The loud clanging metal seems to startle him, and he sits more fully upright. “Maybe tell me where the hell we are, why the hell you think my client lied to me and while we’re on that note, if we’re going for a within-the-law situation maybe shoot off a valid reason for why you are detaining me.”

He wants to keep going but something he has spat has already hit a nerve, because as he takes a breath to continue he hears the door clicking back open.

In the mirror, Lincoln watches a larger man walk in with far more purpose than the man before him, shutting the door firmly behind him.

“That’s enough,” he orders sharply, “Agent Campbell, stand down. Agent White, take five.”

The man steps far enough forward that Lincoln can see him straight on, bending forward with clanging keys — and his heart stutters frantically as the cuffs click cleanly open.

It is the man from the cafe, the man who tracked them down to the motel — which would be enough to start up his pulse alone.  Except that isn’t all.

He is wearing a navy jacket with a too-familiar red seal over the breast pocket.

The red seal of the Queen’s security detail.

His hand twitches instinctively for his thigh as the other man moves toward the door, reaching for a gun that isn’t there, brushing over the bottle of pills that can’t do a thing to help him find Daisy and her mother and his own team. To figure out what the hell is happening.

“My name is Ward,” the man is saying dryly as he replaces the other man in the chair across from him. He nods sideways at his own shoulder, bandaged similarly to his. “Your girl has given us both some grief, it seems.”

Lincoln can hardly hear what the other man is saying through his own racing thoughts.

He has a terrible idea.

“I just have a few questions for you, Agent.  I know you just got caught in the crosshairs. Manipulated.  I can protect you from the repercussions, but I want you to do something for us first.”

He fumbles with the antibiotic lid and doesn’t speak.

“Deal?”

When the lid pops, he covers the noise with a clumsy cough, and the other man’s eyes narrow.

“Is she alive?”

The man has had a gun on her, aimed to kill, more than once.

When he hesitates, Lincoln’s throat squeezes.

“For now.”

His fumbling is more frantic now, fishing out as many of the smaller painkillers from among the antibiotics as he can manage, leaving them still pressed deep in his pocket as he draws the little orange bottle out, holding it tight against his sweating palm.

He is doing his job.  It is the type of calculated risk he would take for any client.

“I take it she isn’t giving you shit?”

The man nods.

“And I am the only way you are going to get your vital information?”

He is afraid the man — Ward — can sense that he is testing the waters, especially when he hesitates.  But then he nods again.

Lincoln lifts the bottle of pills up over the table, displaying them to Ward as prominently as he can without letting him see the harmless antibiotics within.

He is doing his job.

“Probably need to get me to a hospital.”

Ward catches on a moment too late, expression flickering from placid confidence to furious disbelief as Lincoln throws the bitter pills back, swallowing — just out of reach of the hand he throws out to stop him.

“You _idiot_ ,” he growls, fist falling hard to the table.

“Better hurry,” Lincoln presses, smiling wryly, “I’m sure it wouldn’t be ideal to have your key witness die on your watch.”

It takes only a beat for the man to rush into action, motioning tensely at the other side of the glass. Lincoln lets himself relax, tries to make himself look as small as possible as the other man grabs his upper arm, hauling him to his feet as three other men rush through the door — one, the same man who was in the room moments earlier.  He takes his other arm and Ward barks orders that Lincoln doesn’t bother listening to as they drag him into the hall.

He recognizes the tall ceiling and dramatic stone walls immediately.

They are in the castle.

It makes _no sense_.

He lets his body go heavier as the men pull him roughly down the hall, biding his time, collecting his energy — waiting for either man’s grasp to falter.

There aren’t guards posted anywhere in the halls.

It is Ward who lets him go entirely, to turn to bark an order to an apparently incompetent third — and Lincoln is ready — pulling his arm free and throwing a fist into the first agent’s face as hard as he can, ignoring the burst of pain that goes through his shoulder.  He takes off down the first hall, turning left at the first fork even though he knows it goes deeper into the castle, knows that right will take him to the front gates.  He is counting on his pursuers to expect his first choice to be freedom.

He runs faster, for the nearest flight of stairs and then another, busting out into another hall and around a corner.

He thinks there were probably more of the little painkillers left in the bottle than would be considered strictly safe as he turns another corner sloppily, fingers brushing the cool stone wall beside him as he struggles to piece together his next move.  His thoughts feel heavy and thick and he mulls clumsily through them, breathing heavily.

He needs to find Daisy, but he doesn’t know where to start.  

He leans more fully against the cool wall, pressing his forehead hard against the stone and trying to hone his senses to the sensation, fighting to maintain focus.  He curls his fingers against the coarse texture.

She’s alive. For now.

The Queen is likely out of the castle at a safehouse — giving the rogues full access to the countless floors, endless rooms — finding which one she is in could take _days_.

He is certain she doesn’t have days.

“ _Think_ ,” he hisses under his breath, pressing his head harder to the wall.

“If you’ve really got to, at least be careful not to strain anything,” an achingly familiar voice responds from directly behind him.

His protective instincts are miles ahead of any other thought processes and he has whirled on the voice, before it has even finished speaking — grabbing for wrists as he shoves the body roughly back into the opposite wall.

When his eyes focus, Daisy’s are staring back in startled, vaguely amused shock.

“Are you high?”

“I… have never been so happy to be insulted,” he murmurs, mostly to himself — but she smirks. “How—?”

She squirms beneath him and he suddenly becomes aware of her body — flush against his — and her wrists still shoved bruisingly between his hand and the stone wall above her head.  He hurries to let her go, to take a step back — and watches apologetically as she massages her wrists carefully.

“Told them I needed the toilet for lady reasons,” she waggles her eyebrows and switches to rubbing her other wrist. “I’m pretty sure I’ll have another solid ten minutes before they even know I’m gone.”

He can only blink.

“I sort of love you.”

“You are so _massively_ high.”

He wants to argue with her — except then she is reaching out, tangling her warm fingers in his — and whatever protest was on his lips is gone.

“Come on, follow me.”

She turns, quick footsteps echoing through the halls as she tugs him hurriedly behind her.

The details are a bit touch and go, but when she drags him through a heavy door, he can’t quite say that the meager distance she has put between them and the team in pursuit of them is exactly comforting.

She drops his hand, and of all things — crosses the empty room slowly to peer at the tapestries on the opposite wall.

“No offense, but is this really the best we can do?” he asks, and she ignores him — stepping to the third of the ceiling-to-floor paintings and reaching a hand behind it, then a foot — before stepping fully out of view somewhere behind the canvas.

He blinks.

“Keep up, smartass,” her voice echoes mutely from somewhere in the wall — and he steps forward himself, feeling a hand along the wall behind the dusty sheet until he finds the slight entryway.  He has to go through sideways and duck his head to fit — but after a few slight shimmies the space widens out, and he hesitantly allows his body to widen back up.

It is pitch dark — he couldn’t see Daisy if she were right in front of him, and the space smells like stale air that hasn’t been touched for longer than makes him comfortable.

“I hope you are fully aware of how creepy this is,” he mutters under his breath, mostly because the dark unknown pressing around him is starting to wear at him, and he needs to hear something, find some sort of ground to orient himself on.  His soft words echo just barely back to him.

“Out of curiosity, were you aware that not talking is actually an option?” she retorts — but there is warmth to her voice, and a moment later her hand butts blindly against his chest, searching — and he gratefully takes it in his.  “Stay right behind me and keep your head low, okay? It’s been a while since I last did this.  And please, shut up.”

He bites back an automatic retort as she steps carefully forward, tugging him behind her.  The dark is heavy and full — not a speck of light to help his eyes begin to dig through the nothingness.  He holds out the hand that isn’t in hers, occasionally brushing his fingers across cool stone — guiding the rest of him away from it.  

The only sound is their soft footsteps and her quiet breathing — and they seem to walk what could be the entire perimeter of the castle before her steps begin to slow, and she untangles her fingers from his.

“Don’t move.”

The words barely form in the air between them and he hears a different noise — a creaking, the strain of old wood — then the soft protest of rusted over hinges — before a faint light floods down around him from somewhere above.  He blinks hard, light stinging despite its softness — before he can begin to make out Daisy up on a ladder in front of him, lifting herself up through a trapdoor into a room he can’t yet make out.

The light is moonlight, shining down through the trapdoor from a small window up high on a wall of the little room.

“You can move now,” Daisy tells him, head peeking back over the little hole — and he obliges, lifting himself carefully up the rotting ladder and into the room.

It is a library — sort of.  It is small, but shelves of books line four of the walls in the octagonal space.  There is a cot on another wall, blue quilted — eerily similar to the blanket on the cot at May’s.  There is a desk, crowded with books - and a smaller table beside it cluttered with crayons and pages of art — set with a chair only a tiny child could fit into.  

“Help me pull the ladder up, would you?” Daisy prods, drawing him away from his surveillance of the odd room and back to her — struggling to heave the bulky ladder up out of the pit.  He steps forward and together they lift it up against the only free spot on the wall, sized perfectly for the piece.  He is still staring at the spot as Daisy lowers the door back down, flipping a lock.

He takes another slow glance around the room before looking at her.  So many questions and words are poised on his tongue, and he can’t muddle through them quickly enough to determine which part should come out first.

But in his head, all of it is suddenly piecing together — and it all sort of comes out at once.

“You knew your mother’s guard was behind this.”

He doesn’t mean the words to sound so sharp, so accusatory — but he is sick of masks.  Sick of walls, sick of always being a step behind her by her own design.

Her expression doesn’t falter, but it is tells him all he needs to know.

“Goddammit, Daisy,” he snaps, and his stomach is beginning to turn — but he isn’t sure if it is from his boiling anger or the slight overdose, “how many times do I have to almost die for you to earn a fragment of trust!”

“I was going to tell you,” she says, voice too calm, eyes too wide. “I was going to tell you, but then we got interrupted—“

He almost laughs out loud, running a frustrated hand roughly through his hair.

“No, you were going to fuck me over, again, only literally this time. You never planned on telling me _shit_. You are amazingly well versed in keeping secrets. It’s no wonder your first bodyguard got killed.”

This hits a nerve, finally, and fire sparks through the hurt in her eyes as she shoves his chest, hard. He stumbles backwards, only faintly regretting his words.

“Fuck you.”

“Is that really all you have to say to me?” he snaps, swallowing hard against the rising acidity in his throat. “Don’t worry, Princess — I’ve gotten the hint and believe me, I won’t be putting my neck on the line for you anymore.”

Her cheeks are burning red with frustration, and the fire in her eyes has simmered into white-hot coals.

“I didn’t ask you to put your neck on the line in the first place, you entitled _asshole_ ,” she snarls, “I know how goddamn hard it must be for you to see past your own ego, but maybe momentarily consider the nose-dive your likelihood of survival would have taken if you’d fucking known everything I know.”

She is steaming, but her expression still isn’t all rage.  Isn’t all frustration.  There is something else barely-there behind it all, something pleading that he wants desperately to be able to ignore.  To push away.

He only notices now in the moonlight the raised purple crescent beneath her left eye, the bloody split in her lower lip — the remnants of her interrogation.

He swallows, and breathes, and presses his eyes shut, hard.

“I was in deep cover for the first five years of my career. No contact with anyone but my SO. She was all I had, we were partners and it was our job to put our neck on the line for each other and believe me, we did.  It took me all five of those years to realize that she was a double agent. I lost everything and in return I got three bullets in the gut, relieved of my badge, and you. So listen to me, Daisy — I would do anything — _anything_ — for you. But I need to know what the hell we’re getting into first.”

She blinks softly, red in her cheeks fading to a soft pink.  Her gaze is pleading.

“Lincoln, _I trust you,”_ she insists, and he feels frustration begin to bloom in his nerves again at her words.  He opens his mouth to protest but she is quicker, “I just… I can’t take anyone else dying because of me.  I can’t.”

She struggles to push the words past her lips and they sink between them.  Her gaze flicks blinking around the room - everywhere but towards him.

“I haven’t died yet, have I? And I think we can both confirm that it is not for lack of trying.”

She snorts dryly but the light humor works, her gaze finally returning carefully to his, momentarily with a barely-there pity she knows better than to press.

“It started when I turned sixteen.  When my mom’s policies started to become more… polarizing.  It’s why Trip was initially assigned to me.  There was never anything big.  An odd package to dump or … strange people showing up in every dark corner, following me.  Ward was technically my first bodyguard, but never officially. I guess my mother thought she couldn’t go wrong.  He is the head of her detail — it was just a temporary thing, until they could hire someone else.  My mom is a busy woman, after all.”

She smiles wryly, and he can see the pain through the expression.

“I never could prove it was him,” she goes on, talking quickly and softly, as if to bury the words — as she motions tensely to her stomach, to the three close range wounds beneath her shirt she’d shown him the day before. “I was kind of wild.  I didn’t want to be reigned in.  Honestly I… I sometimes even question it myself.  Maybe I was too messed up that night to really remember.  It was safer that way, anyway.  For it to be a faceless, nameless person trying to get at my mother through her only heir.  I went with it, let it be that faceless person. But they reassigned him anyway, and I got Trip. I know he is who killed Trip. He tried to kill me again, too.  

“That’s when I started working with him — or, pretending to.  I thought — I thought maybe I could get something on them, learn what they were after so I could convince my mother to stop looking the other way.  Except it all sort of stopped, then.  I met with Ward here and there, he just asked things about my mother’s policies.  Public things, nothing not readily available to him.”

It doesn’t make sense, and he is certain his confusion shows in his eyes.

“I know,” she mutters. “I’m not quiet about my opposition to my mother’s agenda.  But I think that might be why they let me work with them.  That we at least shared some of the same views.”

It still doesn’t add up to him, why someone opposed to her mother’s agenda would go after Daisy’s life at all, not with her value against her.

Not when reaching her mother would be so much easier, and would put Daisy in a position to undo the policies causing so much turmoil.

The holes in the story make him uneasy.

“So, what changed?”

Her brow furrows.

“What do you mean?”

“Why did they only just go after your mother, if that is really who they were after all along?”

She purses her lips, eyes falling away from his again.

“I started lying to them.  Missing meetings.  They weren’t giving me anything upfront so I was going to try to dig deeper when I came back to the castle at break.  Get some answers.  Ward found out and I guess… he wasn’t happy about it.”

He knows it is something else she labels as her fault, and he also knows that no amount of words will convince her differently.

He reaches out, squeezing her wrist instead — and she looks up, slightly startled at the touch.

“We’ll find her,” he says softly, “and we’ll stop this. It’s gonna be okay.”

He suddenly understands the tiredness in her eyes on a new level, with a new empathy.  Understands the nightmare she’s been living; the life or death game she’s been playing.

“You know you’re the only person who is honest with me, right? You are mean as hell, don’t get me wrong, but I do appreciate knowing that you say what you mean. So just — don’t lie and tell me it’s gonna be okay, alright?”

He slips his hand down her palm, tangling his fingers in hers. She squeezes.

“I’m not lying.”

She grins faintly and he thinks that her smile has never looked so much like sunshine, that he has never felt so much like a speck of dust caught up in someone else’s gravitational pull.  It’s her universe and he can’t help but fall into it, to sink into step behind her and cling for his life.

“Were you not-lying in the hallway too, when you said you sort of loved me?”

Her eyes are glued tight to his, and he doesn’t miss the slight falter as her smile goes softer, more serious — expectant.

“Why?” He asks, carefully testing the waters — and she smirks, hovering closer to him on her toes, lowering her voice conspiratorially.

“Because I’d be very annoyed with you if you were not-lying. It would be very, very annoying.”

Her eyes glisten under the moonlight, and his heart stutters when she presses her free hand softly over it.

“Well?”

“I especially mean it if it annoys you.”

Her eyes are on his lips, and this time his mind is made up — reaching a gentle hand to cradle her jaw, softly brushing his thumb along her chin, across the scabbed-over crack in her lower lip.

She is drifting closer to him and he is holding her tighter when the twinge in his stomach suddenly bursts into a full on convulsion.

“Fuck,” he manages as he tears away from her, clenching his teeth hard against the violent press of nausea in the back of his throat, swallowing a gag.

He feels her fingers on his back, grasping against his spine.

“That’s reassuring,” she quips, and he fights back another gag. “What the hell?”

He swallows gingerly, trying to ignore the acidity on his his tongue.

“I may have accidentally taken… slightly over a double-dose of acetaminophen to get out of the interrogation room.”

She is still behind him, but he can more or less sense her eyebrow raising.

“That was characteristically stupid.”

She guides him to the cot in the corner with an abnormal amount of gentleness anyway, fingers still massaging absentmindedly up and down his spine.  The steady motion is comforting.

“It was only like… 5 or 6.  Plus the antibiotics but those won’t hurt.”

She snorts, and seems to become aware of her hand because the movement suddenly stops as she draws it quickly back to her side.  An odd silence sets in, and Lincoln suddenly wonders if their loud argument might have traveled through the walls and given them away.

“Just relax,” she says softly, distractedly.  “We’ll give them the night to think we are long gone.”

She shifts beside him and his stomach twinges.

“What is this place?” He asks, nodding around the odd little room before glancing sideways at Daisy.  She is staring distantly at the desks, and after a passing moment he nudges her softly.  She blinks.

“It was my father’s. Now it’s mine.  Only my mom knows about it.”

It doesn’t really answer his question, but he can sense that she doesn’t want to be pressed any further on the matter, so he bites his tongue — taking another look around the room.  He wonders if the little child’s chair once was hers.

The silence stretches longer this time, so long he almost wonders if she might have fallen asleep — and then she speaks again.

“Did you love her?”

He can tell the words have been playing through her head by how they tumble so quickly and so formulated from her tongue — forced out, buried in their own force.  It catches him off guard, and suddenly focusing on the rise and fall of the acidic nausea against his throat seems far more attractive than talking to distract himself.

He lets the silence sit as long as he can and then longer before opening his mouth.

“We were all we had.  She was my best friend.”

The night still burns in his memory, the raised scars in his gut still hurt — empty, hollow pulsing.

She didn’t want to shoot him.  He didn’t want to betray her.

“But did you love her?”

She isn’t asking per any jealously — he knows her story well enough now to see that she is comparing notes, same as he has done.

He still hesitates.

(“Lincoln, I _have_ to do this. Please, come with me. Please.”)

He still feels the cool gun clenched tight in his shaking fingers.

(“I _can’t_.”

“Lincoln-“

“Just… go. Hurry. I’ll tell them you got away.”

“They’ll never believe you, my people would never leave you standing.”)

She reaches towards him again, more hesitantly this time, pressing her hand softly into his warm cotton shirt, over the three raised scars that mirror hers.

Almost.

“Did she do this?”

His stomach turns as her fingers dig gingerly against the spot.

“It was the only way they wouldn’t use me against her.”

(“ _Go_ , Alisha.”)

She’d looked back in a panic when the shots echoed.

Daisy goes tense beside him.

“I already know I’m fucked up, in case that was what you’re debating telling me.  Don’t need a reminder.”

He is surprised when she doesn’t pull away — hesitantly, slowly reaching to touch his jaw instead, guiding his gaze away from the room and back down to her.

“Lincoln,” she says, voice soft and careful, “you need to stop putting other people’s lives in front of your own.”

“It’s my job—“ comes out on reflex but she is already shaking her head, hard.

“You can’t do your job if you’re _dead_.”

He tries to pull away from her soft touch, but she holds tight.

“I wish you’d stop caring about me,” he is walking a thin line, almost hoping it causes her to clamp up, to shove her walls back up in his face.  His voice crumbles and her eyes go soft.

“I wish I _could_.”


End file.
